1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to photography and in particular to apparatus for use in producing photographic prints which are customized as to color composition.
2. Description Relative to the Prior Art
One of the more complex technologies is that involving color. Physiological as well as psychological factors influence our interpretation of color, regardless of the actual color content of an image which is being viewed. Even for a pure spectral color such as red, of wavelength 700 m.mu. (m.mu.=milli-micron), or blue, of wavelength 400 m.mu., different viewers will (may) perceive such colors differently; and what is pleasing to one viewer may not be as pleasing to another.
The art of photographic printing is replete with examples of printers designed for the production of color prints. Exemplary apparatus may be found in the following U.S. Pat. Nos.: 3,029,691; 3,152,897; 3,184,307; 3,519,347; 3,653,759; 3,697,174; and 3,756,718.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,519,347 and 3,697,174 are of particular interest since they are directed to the solution of a problem (inherent in color printing) which is identified as "color subject failure" . . . wherein the photographic printer in question, based on an assessed large area transmission density (LATD) of a color negative, misinterprets the color content of the main subject image of the negative, and incorrectly exposes, color-wise, photographic print material. Even with a photographic printer including apparatus for solving the color subject failure problem, the prints which are produced by such printer are prints embracing color content "as viewed by the printer".
While not directed to the color aspect of subject failure in a printer, the teaching of U.S. Pat. No. 3,677,641 concerns "subject failure", per se, in the photographic printing of a negative, the solution to such problem being to allow the operator of the printer to zero in on the main subject of a negative to be printed, thereby to derive necessary exposure information to make the desired print. Except for the matter of the operator-selection of the main subject, prints produced by the teaching of U.S. Pat. No. 3,677,641 are determined by what the printer itself "sees".
U.S. Pat. No. 3,947,110 discusses various "failures" in the printing operation and provides for customer-involvement in the determination of exposure in a printer.
Related to the art of producing photographic prints from photographic negatives is the art of producing hard copy prints of scenes corresponding to video signal information: With the widespread availability of television receivers, especially color television receivers, there is significant interest in being able to convert television displays into copies thereof. Representative prior art in this connection may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,683,111; 3,617,626; and 4,148,066. Compounding the problem of producing hard copies of color television displays, however, is the aforenoted problem that color displays are a matter of subjective taste. What one viewer likes may not be what another viewer likes . . . and what each such viewer "sees" may be different from what the hard copy printer "sees". Thus, it is inevitable that prior art hard copies are, at best, compromises which will be reasonably satisfactory to everyone.